05 Practice Area
Intellectual Property
Trade marks, copyright, and the brand a business is usually protecting a year too late.
Most businesses arrive at intellectual property at the wrong moment — after someone else has registered the name they have been trading under for three years, or after a former contractor has walked off with artwork they thought they had bought. Protection is inexpensive in advance and expensive in arrears.
We advise on trade mark clearance, filing and prosecution before the Trade Marks Registry, on copyright protection and assignment, and on the licensing of brand and creative assets. We also act in opposition, rectification and infringement proceedings, and in passing-off actions.
A large part of this work is unglamorous and decisive: establishing that the business actually owns what it believes it owns. Contractor agreements that never assigned copyright, and marks registered in a founder’s personal name, are the two gaps we find most often.
Common questions
Questions we are asked
We have traded under our brand name for years. Do we still need to register it?
Yes. Unregistered use gives you rights in passing off, but they are slower and costlier to enforce than a registration, and they will not stop someone else registering the same mark and putting you on the back foot. Registration is the cheapest insurance available in this area of law.
A contractor designed our logo. Who owns it?
Very often the contractor, not you. Copyright in a commissioned work does not pass simply because you paid for it — it needs a written assignment. This is the most common ownership gap we see, and it usually surfaces during due diligence, at the worst possible moment.
Someone is using a name close to ours. What can we do?
Depending on whether either mark is registered, the options run from a cease-and-desist notice, through opposition or rectification before the Registry, to an infringement or passing-off suit with an application for injunction. Act promptly: delay weakens both the claim and any interim relief.
Speak to us
Tell us what has happened.
The first conversation costs you nothing but the time it takes. Message the chambers on WhatsApp and we will tell you plainly whether you have a matter worth pursuing, and what it will realistically take.